Walmart says there is no truth to a new report claiming that the company has told for-hire shipment carriers that they must terminate their relationships with Amazon.
An article on the shipping and logistics website DC Velocity reported that a consultant had told attendees at a industry conference that Amazon is putting pressure on their for-hire shipment carriers to choose between doing business with Walmart and Amazon. “Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is telling its for-hire motor carriers that if they also haul goods for Amazon.com Inc., they will have to stop doing so in return for keeping Wal-Mart business, a leading transport and logistics consultant said today,” the article said.
A spokesman for Walmart said “there is absolutely no truth to that report.”
“Our outside carriers are free to do business with whoever they please,” the spokesman said.
The DC Velocity story reported that Satish Jindel, described as a “leading transport and logistics consultant,” had said that Walmart’s warning to shipment carriers is that last step taken in the ongoing “cold-war” between Walmart and Amazon, the latter of which recently purchased Whole Foods.
Walmart, looking to compete in the online retail sector with Amazon, purchased retailer Jet.com last August for $3.3 billion. In June, they announced that they had purchased Bonobos, an upscale men’s clothing retailer.
The carrier story followed reports last month that Walmart Stores Inc. had told some of its technology partners that if they want to maintain their business with the company, they must terminate their relationship with Amazon Web Services and move to Microsoft’s cloud computing service Azure.
Tom Ciccotta is a libertarian who writes about economics and higher education for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or email him at tciccotta@breitbart.com